Fascinating: The Fake Plastic Crowds You See In Movies

If you are James Cameron and have hundreds of millions of dollars budgeted to make a film, then you’d probably use real people (extras) or fancy computer generated imagery to create a crowd for a scene, right? But what about all the movies that don’t have that kind of budget? Have you ever wondered how they “make a crowd?”

I just learned about this, and it’s fascinating to me. Did you know that in some of the movies you’ve watched they have used an inflatable plastic crowd? DreamWorks, Universal, Fox, Warner Brothers, Sony, Disney, Paramount, and New Line are just some of the companies that have used these in their films.

There is a company called The Inflatable Crowd Company that was created for Seabiscuit back in 2002. Ever since then, companies have been using these, but you’d never know it. Each torso is dressed and wears a wig. In the movies, they look just like real people. You can learn more about this at Inflatable Crowd. I put pictures of these plastic crowds below from the movies American Gangster, Cinderella Man, We Are Marshall, The Changeling and Glory Road. This is wild and wacky stuff! #learnsomethingneweveryday